


pass that dutch

by kiaronna



Series: YOI One-Shots [15]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Mean Girls Fusion, Comedy, Fluff, Friendship, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, everyone is the same age okay how else would they be in high school together, young christophe giacometti
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-14 06:08:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14764089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiaronna/pseuds/kiaronna
Summary: Maybe Viktor shouldn't have watched Mean Girls before he started his first day of high school in the United States, but he can't help it if he is suddenly inducted into his high school's very fashionable, Instagram-obsessed royalty.He can't help falling in love with the cute soccer player in his literature class, either. Even if he's supposed to be off limits.





	pass that dutch

**Author's Note:**

> Apparently Mean Girls has a musical now.  
> This fic is to make up for the fact that I wrote Viktor Nikiforov as a football captain and now need to write him as a teenage fan of the arts.

To say that Viktor is excited for his first day of actual high school in the United States, not being homeschooled in Russia and put through daily rigorous dance lessons, is an understatement.

He’s been sheltered, he knows, so to prepare he decides it can’t hurt to watch some American movies, and Mean Girls is top of the list.

“Meaningless drama,” Yakov _harumphs_. “If your school is like this, you march right out of there, and we will return to Russia.”

Real high school, Viktor finds out, is much more dramatic. But maybe that’s just because Viktor is the one going there.

* * *

Viktor is cornered by an art nerd before the first hour of school is up. He has curly, downy blonde hair, innocent grass-green eyes, and stands a good foot shorter than Viktor.

“Hi,” he says, “I’m Christophe. You seem lost.”

“I just look like that,” Viktor responds back easily, and then wishes he could permanently shut his mouth.

“What time do you have lunch? There are two blocks. Most of us juniors are in the earlier one.”

Viktor pulls out his pink planner. “Twelve!”

“Perfect, I can get you acquainted to Stammi High's layout.”

Christophe may not draw him a map, but the cafeteria is pretty easy to sort out.

“Band geeks, Crispinos—“

“Why are there two people at a six-person table?”

“Just…don’t sit there if you value your life. Anyway. Nerds, jocks, JV jocks, mathletes…”

“That’s social suicide,” Viktor whispers. “Nobody would talk to a mathlete.”

“Trust me,” Christophe replies, “Seung-Gil knows. He likes it. He did it on purpose. Where were we? Right. Mathletes. People who love each other,” he points to a couple, curled up together in a chair, a girl with eyes like amber. “People who really love themselves,” Viktor doesn’t need him to point, he can see the Canadian flag and the tattoos from a mile away. “And, finally, the coolest people you will ever meet!” At this, Christophe sits down at a half-full table, giving a fistbump to a brunette already sitting there, a charcoal pencil in his mouth.

Viktor would be totally satisfied with this, if it were not for the glaring lack of explanation of the table that sits at the crown of the cafeteria.

“Who,” he says, as the three boys at the table lean in together and put on perfect smiles for a camera, “are they?”

Christophe’s face screws up. The brunette at the table with them sighs. “That,” Christophe says, “is Phichit Chulanont and his crew. We used to be friends when we were kids. But let’s not talk about them.”

Viktor swallows his curiosity, and doesn’t.

* * *

Everyone has a favorite subject in school, but it seems the most popular subject is Phichit. From his most recent tweet to the filter on his Instagram pics, Viktor can’t get through a class without hearing about him.

Phichit can’t even be avoided in person.

“Hi there,” says a boy to Viktor one day while he’s trying to make it back to Christophe’s side, “I haven’t really seen you around before.” Viktor can’t recall having seen him before, at all, but it seems rude to say it. Especially when the boy continues, gestures getting more emphatic.

Viktor thinks he probably belongs at the ‘people who love themselves’ table, right next to the guy with the tattoos and guitar.

“Yeah, I guess,” Viktor monotones, bored, and looks down at his pudding cup and broccoli.

“Hungry? I’m ravenous. I bet we could really sate each other—“

“Hey,” a new voice interrupts, melodic and sure. “Viktor. Is this boy bothering you?”

“Um,” Viktor says, and when he turns he’s met with the dazzling image of Phichit Chulanont, fingers steepled and expression impatient, almond eyes intense.

“Aw,” says the boy. “I’m just having a little fun—“

Phichit holds up a hand, and there is instant silence.

“Look,” Phichit says calmly, “you don’t come to my party on Saturday with Guang-Hong and then ruin all of our cheesy fries by propositioning the new guy right in front of us. Viktor, do you want to sleep with him?”

Jarred, Viktor blinks. “Not at all.”

“Great, then it’s settled! You can come over here and he can go back to the dumpster he came out of. Leo, scoot over.”

Leo scoots, without a second word. Viktor’s annoying new friend makes a hasty exit.

Viktor is having a lot of _Mean Girls_ déjà vu. “Um, I actually—“ a quick glance at the table where Chris is sitting reveals that Christophe is making confused, frantic _go on_ gestures. “Yes. Okay. Here I am. Sitting with you.”

A blinding flash of light temporarily distracts him, but then he realizes that it’s just Phichit smiling, all sharp and perfectly arranged white teeth.

“I know you. Do you know why I know you?”

“Probably because I’m the only transfer student in a relatively small town?”

More fashionable glinting occurs, as Phichit lazily waves his perfectly manicured hand. “Yes, that, but _whatever_. I’m talking about your follower count on Twitter and Insta. You make jewelry?”

It’s impossible not to glance down at his bracelet of the day, and to swallow nervously. Viktor’s spent nearly all of his life making jewelry, dancing, exploring and documenting nature, and interacting solely with wild, unsocialized animals like his adoptive parents (Yakov and Lilia). “I do. This one is from my mom, though.”

Phichit leans across the table, beams. “Your bracelet is adorable.”

Viktor has a strange, fluttery feeling in his stomach that he’d normally classify as excitement over a budding friendship, but he’s watched Mean Girls. He _knows_ what high schools are like.

_That is the ugliest effing skirt I’ve ever seen._

“Thanks,” Viktor replies, but Phichit is already staring down at his phone, texting rapidly. Both Leo and Guang-Hong’s phones buzz cheerily, and Leo nods sleepily, one earbud still in.

“Hey, so,” Phichit continues, “do you want to sit with us?”  Viktor is _not_ going to look over at Christophe’s table again. All he can do is nod, too rapidly. “Cool. Anyway, your follower count makes sense. You’re talented _and_ super pretty.”

Viktor’s mom constantly informs him of this, and the grim expression on Yakov’s face tells him she’s not just saying it out of motherly love. “Thanks.”

“Oh, good,” Phichit says, “you know you’re super pretty, then. Unlike _some_ people.” Viktor has no idea who this is targeted at, but it is evidently not Leo or Guang-Hong, who both roll their eyes fondly.

“Um,” is all Viktor can say. Maybe he should be more modest. Maybe he should—

“Wednesdays are lunch selfie day,” Guang-Hong interrupts his inner turmoil, cheerfully. “We bring lunch from home to photograph in the best light. And,” his brown eyes are so big, so luminously warm, “we wear pink.”

Well, at least Viktor has that part covered.

* * *

Viktor is pretty sure he’s going to hate all of the social parts of school, but at least he has literature class. At least he has the safety of Vonnegut, Shakespeare, and—

_RED ALERT RED ALERT BRAIN SHUTTING DOWN, REROUTE ALL BLOOD TO—_

The cutest and hottest and objectively the sweetest boy Viktor has ever laid eyes upon has just entered the classroom. Forget dystopias and comedies, love poems are bubbling up helplessly in his brain. Viktor’s object of affection is fiddling with the straps on his blue backpack, frames hanging low on his flushed nose, getting the occasional high five as he makes his way to the chair _right in front of Viktor_. Why, you ask, is he getting high fives? Probably because he’s got on a soccer jersey with the words ‘team captain’ painstakingly embroidered on his sleeve.

Forget Viktor’s _league_ , they’re not even in the same competition. The same species.  

 _Don’t mess this up,_ Viktor orders himself. But he doesn’t get a chance.

Adorable, Gorgeous Team Captain gets a slow, panning eyeful of Viktor’s loafers and black pants and home-tailored vest—look, Viktor wants to make a good first impression at school— before he promptly squeaks and knocks over his own desk.

Somehow, he even makes bending over to yank his desk back up a drool-worthy event. Subtly, Viktor tries to shove his jaw into a socially appropriate position before Gorgeous jerkily sweeps his hair back, muttering under his breath with kissable pink lips before half-collapsing into his chair.

Hiding his attraction is clearly a lost cause. Viktor must have forgotten his dignity in Russia.

“You okay, Yuuri?” A redhead twirling a pencil, whose soccer jersey matches, pops her contraband gum.

 _Yuuri_. A name Viktor could get used to writing all over his notebooks.

“Fine!” Yuuri declares, rapid-fire. “I’m great! Mila, would you—could you—switch desks with me!”

Viktor didn’t think people would run from him before he opened his mouth. Apparently, his social skills are worse than he thought. He’ll have to work on the charm some more.

He’s musing on how best to do this, so deeply that he doesn’t pay much attention when Mila smirks and hums, “oh, you poor soul, not a chance.”

At least he gets to stare at the back of Yuuri’s head every day.

* * *

It’s Wednesday. Viktor wears pink. He brings in pirozhki, courtesy of his cousin.

One bite it all it takes for Phichit to grab his hands fiercely.

“Sorry if it’s high in carbohy—“

“ _Shutup_ ,” Phichit gasps, a dangerous glint in his eye. “Shut. Up. This is awesome. Awesome awesome awesome. Somebody get me a selfie stick immediately.”

Maybe high school isn’t all bad.

* * *

Viktor may be awful at actually communicating the desires of his heart to Yuuri, but he’s excellent at walking Yuuri to his next class and playing with the low cut of his own shirt.

(Yuuri is refusing to look at the low cut of his shirt. Viktor doesn’t know how to make boys raised in America like him; clearly they’re a different animal altogether.)

“Can I come to your game?” Viktor says, as Yuuri fails to unlock his locker for the eighth time in a row. Yuuri is terrible with locker combinations, Viktor has discovered. His hands are always shaking and he’s always too distracted to remember which spin he’s on. Maybe this is why he does soccer and dance and swimming—less hand-eye coordination, more foot-eye. Viktor wishes Yuuri’d let Viktor guide his hands.

Yuuri lets out a noise that Viktor hasn’t heard since he left the wilds of Russia—a high burbling, like some rare bird.

“If you want,” he says, and looks miserable.

“I do, I do!”

Viktor attends and drags Christophe along, and only barely resists making a ‘I <3 Yuuri’ banner.

* * *

It’s a Friday, when Viktor nearly gets run over by a red Corvette.

“Get in, loser, we’re going shopping!”

This is followed by three glorious hours of shoes, shirts, and a video game store.

“One for me,” Phichit says, holding up a copy of a 3DS game in one hand and a XBOX game in the other, “and one for my shy bestie. Do we approve?”

“He’ll love it,” Leo assures him, and Viktor has to nod blankly and not ask who Phichit’s ‘bestie’ is, because he has no idea how video games work. If he stays quiet, maybe no one will point this out.

Viktor is awkward, but he wants to belong. Between Phichit's crew at school and Chris in the evenings, it almost feels like he does.

* * *

“So,” Guang-Hong says conversationally next Thursday, when Phichit is off arguing the food pyramid with a lunch lady, “anybody caught your eye yet?”

Viktor doesn’t know about his eye, but Yuuri’s caught his heart.

“There’s a boy in my math class,” he says, before he can stop himself. The problem is that it’s been over two weeks, and the three of them seem so _nice_. “His name is Yuuri. He’s on the soccer team.”

His dreamy sigh is stopped prematurely, when Guang-Hong spills his strawberry milk.

“Wait, Katsuki Yuuri?” Viktor nods. “Black hair, always wears blue, a face that looks like it belongs in an art exhibit?” Oh, that’s definitely the one. Viktor drops his chin in his hand and lets his dreamy smile do all the talking for him.

Leo pops an earbud out. “Oh, no. No no no.”

“No no no nono,” Guang-Hong choruses, and then frantically snags Viktor’s hands. “Look. Do not tell Phichit. Yuuri is…” Viktor’s stomach drops. “He’s just not emotionally available, okay? Trust us on this.”

There’s only one possible explanation, and it’s one Viktor should have learned from American high school movies right away. Of course Viktor can’t have everything he wanted in a normal life: not friends, not a boyfriend, not a normal life and love.

Yuuri is Phichit’s ex, and Viktor is so screwed.

“I really like him,” Viktor whimpers, quieter with each word. Guang-Hong looks at him with frightening amounts of sympathy. Brushing silver strands of his hair away from his ear, Viktor lets Leo soothe him with the strains of angsty screamo metal.

“Don’t worry,” Guang-Hong comforts over the screeching, “it’ll be our little secret.”

* * *

So Viktor’s not supposed to have a crush on Yuuri, but that doesn’t mean he can’t ever _see_ Yuuri.

“I’m really bad at AP Lit,” Viktor complains as they walk down the hallway.

“No,” Yuuri corrects instantly, head cocking to the side, “you’re not? I’ve seen you in class. You get it.”

“I just think I need a tutor,” Viktor desperately finishes, because he was not ready to go off script. He was not ready for Yuuri to have been paying attention to him.

Yuuri blinks behind his glasses, slow and sweet. “If you want to be study partners,” he finally says, “you can come over to my house on Tuesdays.”

“ _Yes_.”

And if studying turns into eating all of Yuuri’s mom’s cooking, and watching episode after episode of _Friends_ , and if Tuesdays turns into Tuesdays and Wednesdays and Thursdays and Fridays, well, Viktor can’t be blamed.

(Viktor, for the record, is terrible at pretending to be bad at AP Lit. Anything in his brain comes right out his lips.

"Do you think Phichit will mind us hanging out this much?" Viktor blurts on at least one occasion. "Should we tell him?"

Yuuri shudders, and puts his hand over the camera on Viktor's phone. "Maybe not."

So Viktor doesn't.)

* * *

When Viktor’s spending half his time daydreaming about Yuuri, and the other half wearing progressively shorter skirts in an attempt to efficiently gain Phichit’s approval as well as seduce his crush, it’s a miracle Phichit doesn’t find out sooner.

“Guang-Hong let slip that you like Katsuki Yuuri.”

Viktor sucks in a breath. He really hopes this doesn’t turn into hair pulling. Viktor needs all his hair. Viktor should lie—

“I do.” Viktor’s mouth never listens to his brain.

Phichit looks positively devious, despite his shiny smile and adorable red and gold leather jacket.

“I’m so delighted to hear it. You know, Yuuri and I are _super_ close.” A flutter of his dense eyelashes, winged eyeliner so sharp it could stab someone right in the back. “I… could talk to him for you?”

Viktor knows exactly how this went for Cady in Mean Girls, and he doesn’t need to watch Phichit flounce around Yuuri in a slutty hamster costume before kissing him right in front of Viktor’s distraught face.

“That’s okay,” Viktor tries to say.

“Perfect,” Phichit says, “I’m inviting you both to my Halloween party. I have a feeling you’ll be great drunks in each other’s company.”

Yeah, Viktor is definitely screwed.

* * *

When Phichit said he and Yuuri were close, he _meant_ it. In every interpretation of the word. He’s got one hand on Yuuri’s shoulder, and another gesturing eagerly with his cup of pumpkin juice.

Viktor hates pumpkin juice. He hates this party. He hates that he didn’t get the memo, despite watching all the American movies, and dressed like Leonardo da Vinci instead of a video game character or a prostitute.

He mostly hates that Yuuri has spent the whole night weaving between rooms and avoiding looking at Viktor _at all_. At least, until he and Phichit started talking—because then he starts sneaking a look every five seconds, and looking progressively more terrified.

Viktor can only imagine what Phichit is saying.

_He writes your name in all his notebooks in sparkly pink pen. He talks about you all the time. He’s obsessed with you._

Look, Phichit doesn’t even have to _lie_ to make Viktor seem creepy.

Before his very eyes, Phichit leans in. He and Yuuri’s gazes meet firmly, and Yuuri flushes deep red.

Then Yuuri turns, and strides away rapidly, Phichit’s wrist in his hand. They lock themselves in a bathroom for five whole minutes.

 _Only five minutes, that’s not impressive,_ Viktor thinks pettily, miserably when Phichit reappears and nearly skips towards him.

His big brown eyes are alight, dimples situated perfectly. Viktor wishes he had dimples. Viktor wishes he’d spent five minutes in a bathroom with Yuuri.

“I am such a good wingman to everyone. You don’t even know. You should meet Yuuri in twenty minutes out on the back porch, and talk. I have to drive some poor idiot home, but hopefully you two can manage without me.”

Viktor’s stomach is roiling. “Yuuri asked for me?”

“Yes! Get ready, you huge nerd.”

Viktor drinks a whole cup of pumpkin juice, for courage. As though Yuuri, perfect Yuuri, would suffer from the same nerves, he too is in the kitchen, swallowing down a red Solo cup of… something.

Twenty minutes later, Viktor sits on the porch, next to a grinning Jack-O’-Lantern, and waits.

Yuuri doesn’t come.

Viktor waits for what feels like hours, but it’s cold, and his fingers are going numb. He gathers up his costume, and steps back inside to say goodbye to Guang-Hong and Leo, who he last witnessed cuddling on Phichit’s living room couch.

He makes it about ten feet, before Katsuki Yuuri, a tie wrapped around his head, is sliding down the bannister of Phichit’s stairs. When he sees Viktor, he holds out one sticky, golden hand.

Viktor may be awkward, and not know how to talk to his peers like an actual human being, but he knows how to dance.

 

* * *

On Monday, Yuuri is sitting at their lunch table.

Viktor would be thrilled, but Phichit’s got an arm slung around his blue-sweater shoulders, and a hand in his hair.

“Viktor,” Phichit says, “look at how sexy Yuuri is, with his hair pushed back.”

Yuuri has Viktor’s number. Viktor had kept his schedule clear, all Saturday and Sunday, just in case Yuuri realized that Friday’s Halloween party was the best day of his life and he needed Viktor, desperately.

Yuuri did not call. He didn’t even deign to respond to Viktor’s one exploratory vague text.

“Stop it,” Yuuri protests softly, swatting one of Phichit’s hands away, and goes red. “I knew I shouldn’t have come over here, just because my lunch period got switched to yours today.”

His smile at Viktor is tentative, and nothing like it had been on Friday.

“Nonsense.” Phichit leans impossibly closer, ruffles another hand through Yuuri’s hair. He looks utterly pleased with himself. “Viktor, tell Yuuri he looks sexy with his hair pushed back.”

Phichit, despite his weeks of kindness and their trips to the mall and their numerous texts, is still the most popular boy in school. He has all the power, has Yuuri on his arm and hidden away in the bathroom for _five minutes_.

Viktor should have known better.

“You look sexy with your hair pushed back,” he says quietly. His lips may tremble, and his cheeks may heat, but he doesn’t cry.

Phichit just smiles ever wider, bursting at the seams of Viktor’s heart, and he can’t bear to look at Yuuri.

He has to talk to Christophe tonight.

 

* * *

Luckily, Christophe’s home is only a ten minute walk from Viktor’s house. He pushes dinner around on his plate, much to Yakov’s hidden distress. Viktor loves his parents, but there are things they don’t understand.

Mostly beautiful brown-eyed, golden-skinned things, that had been texting Viktor more and more frequently before last Friday brought everything crashing down.

“Oh, cherie,” Christophe hums, gesturing him inside. He stands on his tiptoes to put an arm around Viktor’s shoulders. His curly blonde hair is faintly scented with chemicals.  “Come on. Sorry for the paint.”

Viktor steps over several jars, brushes dried paint flakes off his new sweater, and collapses onto Christophe’s couch.

“I’m so stupid,” he sniffles. “Christophe, I’m—I’m an idiot. Phichit figured out I liked Yuuri and you should have _seen_ him at lunch, he and Guang-Hong and Leo were all dangling him in front of my face. They were teasing me, for how much I liked him.”

Christophe settles in beside him, balances a plate of cookies on Viktor’s lap. “I’m sorry. I thought he and his friends might’ve changed, but it sounds like nothing has since middle school.”

Viktor begins to break a cookie into smaller and smaller crumbs. “You never told me what happened.”

Christophe curls his knees up. “Nothing big. We were best friends, and I got invited to Phichit’s birthday pool party. We were typical tweens and played truth or dare—they knew I liked Phichit, so Guang-Hong dared us to dive to the bottom of the pool and, well.” The tips of his ears are red, but the look on Christophe’s face is unmistakably _thirsty_. “Kiss there. I was all for it. Phichit was… less so. I half-drowned while waiting for him, and everyone was laughing, and later my mom got mad because I came back coughing up water, and asked what we were doing, and then _his_ mom got mad and—ah. It doesn’t matter. I made a fool of myself. Phichit had his fun.”

Viktor leans his head on Christophe’s shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. It was years ago. I’m a scrawny drama and art kid and Phichit is a really hot, sociable guy who plays lacrosse.”

“For the record,” Viktor says, “you’re all sparkly and cherubic and small now, but I think you’re going to be very conventionally attractive when you grow up.”

“Hah!” Christophe snorts. “When Katsuki marries his celebrity crush.”

Viktor freezes. “What.”

“I’m sorry,” Christophe replies rapidly, “I didn’t think. It’s, um, it’s just a phrase we use at school. It’s basically equivalent to ‘when pigs fly.’”

“Why?” Viktor demands breathlessly. Even if Yuuri is out of his reach, Viktor can’t stop wanting to know everything about him. Viktor is so—

“He’s got a crush on some Insta-famous guy in _Russia_ , of all places. He won’t tell any of us his handle or name and we don’t know Russian celebrities— but we all heard the rumour, and everyone knows to think twice before they get any feelings for him. That’s a heartbreak waiting to happen. He and his crush have never met, but Yuuri follows him religiously and wears his jewelry all the time when it’s not soccer season—“

Viktor scrambles to the floor, digs through his backpack. The cookies go flying.

“ _No_.”

This isn’t possible. Good things don’t happen to Viktor, in high school.

“Hey!” Christophe protests. “What’re you—“

Viktor shoves a bracelet in his face, one he’s been working on crafting. The logo is already carefully embroidered into the side.

“Is this it,” Viktor pants, “is this the brand he wears?”

“Viktor, I’m not the one with a crush on him, I don’t— _oh. Merde_ , Viktor, yeah. That’s it. How…”

“Because it’s mine.”

They stare at each other.

“Do you think,” Viktor says slowly, “that Yuuri might not have realized it’s me?”

“Like hell,” is Christophe’s blunt response. “He knows. The only reason I didn’t get it is because it’s too much of a coincidence. And if Yuuri knows, Phichit knows. They’re best friends.”

“Exes,” Viktor corrects, automatically. Christophe squints at him. “Um, off-and-on again? I don’t know the term for it.”

Christophe licks his lips. “I’ve had a crush on Phichit since elementary school. I’d know if he and Yuuri ever officially dated. So. No.”

The events of earlier that day simmer up before Viktor can even work through them. “Then _why_ would he ever push Yuuri’s hair back and, and, and make me tell him he was sex…y…” Viktor is a fool. Always a lovestruck fool, but occasionally an actual one. “Christophe,” Viktor whispers, “I. I think Yuuri likes me _back_.”

Christophe takes in a deep breath. Then he throws a cookie at him.

“What are you waiting for?!”

 

* * *

Viktor wants nothing more than to go straight to Yuuri the next day after school, but there’s another person he might need to talk to first.

Phichit looks smaller, doing his homework on his laptop, sitting on a rock ledge just outside the cafeteria.

“Hey, beyotch,” he greets, before Viktor even tugs himself onto the ledge beside him. This is part of what had scared Viktor, initially: no matter how absorbed in his electronics, Phichit knows everything within a twenty foot radius of him.

“Phichit,” Viktor says, because he has no sense of hesitancy or self-preservation, “I’m going to confess to Yuuri. And I need to know that you, well, approve. I need to know that I’m not imagining things.”

Phichit closes his laptop. “Wow. O…kay. I thought you were being weird about calling Yuuri sexy the other day, even though you definitely think it. We all know you like each other; you and Yuuri are awful at secrets. And of _course_ I approve. But why does it matter what I think?”

“I just found out you and Yuuri are best friends?”

“ _Just?_ ”

“And well,” Viktor ploughs on, fiddling with the belt loop of his jeans, “you’re a popular guy? You’re, um, the queen bee of the high school?”

Phichit fumbles his phone, and this is how Viktor knows it’s _serious_. “I’m sorry, _what_?”

Viktor is going to have to give examples. “You know, like,” he drops his voice to a whisper, “Mean Girls? But, well, nicer.”

Viktor’s spent months trying to make Phichit laugh, make Phichit like him, to fit in despite his own inexperience with normal, everyday human relationships.

Now Phichit’s laughing harder than anything Viktor has ever managed.

“You,” he gasps, “you think that I’m? Bahahaha. Oh my god, Yuuri has excellent taste. You’re hilarious.”

The mere mention of Yuuri has Viktor’s heart straining painfully.

“I don’t get it.”

“Viktor. Guang-Hong, Leo, and I were voted the top 3 most adorable guys of the school, not the plastics. We sit by ourselves at lunch because we’re in a lunch period without the rest of our friends.” He sucks in a brilliant, huge breath. “Oh, my god, _you think I’m Regina George._ ”

“So you’re not…?”

“Viktor,” Phichit giggles, “I’m a social-media-famous nerd. Not a gorgeous bitch. Have you been _scared_ of me? You? You and those cheekbones and those eyes?”

Now that Viktor thinks about it, Phichit hasn’t done one mean thing. Not one.

Except for…

“Sorry. Chri—one of the drama kids said you had a falling out because you thought he wasn’t good enough for you, and everyone at school is always talking about you and looking you up on Twitter, so I just…”

Phichit is no longer laughing. “First off, Christophe knows _exactly_ what he did at my pool party in 8 th grade.”

“So there was no teasing over the crush and avoiding a kiss at the bottom of the pool?”

Phichit goes beet red. “He told you everything, huh. I guess he tells everyone. I have one embarrassing crush and nobody lets me forget it for years.”

 _I have one embarrassing crush_.

“Did you like Chris?”

“Oh my _god_ ,” Phichit groans, pushing his face into one tan hand, “yes, I like him, make fun of me all you want.”

“You like him _now_ ,” Viktor realizes. “You _wanted_ to kiss him at the bottom of the pool. Your friends weren’t mocking Chris—they were teasing you.”

“ _Shut up_!” Phichit wails. How did Viktor ever think this sweet, bold boy was Regina George? “I didn’t want our first kiss to be a dare. So sue me! Screenshot the receipts! How was I supposed to know Christophe would start to drown and get embarrassed when everyone laughed at me—and tell me he would’ve kissed anyone and then give me the cold shoulder in the hallway for the rest of the year—“

“You both made a mess of this.”

Phichit glares. “We were in middle school, okay. Middle school is a trying time. ”

“Christophe Giacometti. Looks like a baby angel but is clearly developing the sassy and perverted mouth of a devil.” He pauses. “If you still like him, you should tell him.”

Phichit sighs. “You know, for as much as I’ve told my friend that exact same advice, I guess I have to follow through. It’s just—he doesn’t dislike me now?”

Christophe still keeps his paintings of Phichit around. “No, I’m pretty sure he doesn’t. I think both of you need to stop assuming the other person is going to announce their crush over Twitter, because you’re both actually kind of private, and I think you should go for it.”

“Coolness,” Phichit huffs, but it sounds unsteady. “Look, uh. We’ve become pretty good friends recently, and—“ he cuts off with a smirk. “You _do_ consider us friends, right, Viktor? You’re not going to try to get me to gain weight and turn Leo and Guang-Hong against me?”

“We’re friends!” Viktor yelps. “ _Please_ don’t lord the fact that I thought Mean Girls was an accurate representation of real life over me.”

_Friends._

Now that he’s said it, he can’t help but feel a little warm shake in his heart. They _are_ friends. Viktor didn’t really have friends, back in Russia, and now he has three. No, Chris makes four.

Four friends, and Yuuri. As much time as he’s spent with Phichit, Guang-Hong, and Leo, he’s spent even more with Yuuri. Yuuri is his best friend—and maybe more.

“Coolness,” Phichit repeats, and sounds much better this time. “Look, seeing as how we’re friends, I feel the need to tell you that Katsuki Yuuri is out doing laps on the track right now. He’ll be there for…” A glance at his cell phone. “Another half-hour or so.”

“I hope he’d like for a Russian Instagram user and amateur jewelry maker to go keep him company.”

“I think Yuuri can tell you exactly how much he’d like that.”

 

* * *

Their first kiss doesn’t happen on a track, or at the diner they go to after Yuuri is done at the track in front of the entire football team, or even on the couch at Yuuri’s house where they fall asleep together watching a movie. No, their first kiss happens at Spring Fling, after a particularly passionate round of tango. Slow and sweet and then wet and longing, until Viktor’s legs turn to jello and they’re practically sprawled out on the floor.

The dance’s adult chaperones are too busy pulling Chris and Phichit out from behind the auditorium’s stage, lips kiss-bitten and hair sticking up, for Viktor and Yuuri to even be scolded for it.

 

* * *

September rolls around again. Viktor will miss making out with Yuuri in pool chairs, feeding each other watermelon, and making each other jewelry with seashells, but there’s something magical about coming back to school, too.

Unfortunately, there’s a gaggle of sophomore kids hanging around the entryway.

“Is he single?” One girl whispers, and Viktor automatically tightens his hand in Yuuri’s.

But he shouldn’t have worried—there, in the middle of it all, handing out information packets for auditioning for the school musical, is a tall and painfully attractive blonde with grass-green eyes.

“Transfer student?” He questions Yuuri, who can only shrug, at least until someone pushes through the crowd and kisses New Transfer Student right on the lips.

“Phichit!” Yuuri gasps. “Oh. Oh god. Did he just kiss the new guy? Did he and Chris break up?”

 _REGINA GEORGE,_ Viktor’s brain screams automatically, _CHEATING SOUNDS LIKE A MEAN GIRLS THING TO DO IN HIGH SCHOOL_.

But he and Phichit have history, have a strong friendship, and he has more faith than that. Regina George is nowhere in sight.

“That six foot tall god with abs,” Viktor realizes, “ _is_ Christophe.”

“I thought he went to his Grandma’s for the summer, not an Abercrombie model training camp,” Yuuri says in wonder. “Wow. How do I grow six inches in three months and gain significant amounts of muscle? My soccer team needs this.”

Viktor swoops in for a kiss. “I think their captain is already handsome and muscular enough.”

“Come to my game,” Yuuri says, giving him another swift kiss, “and this captain will carry you back to my car for a date.”

Viktor’s already coming to all of Yuuri’s games, but extra motivation never hurts.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Cao Bin is the one who would show up at the confessional and everyone's like "you don't even go here"  
> Thanks for reading, reviews give me life, I'M TRYING TO DO ZINES, BYE <3


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